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"I stand corrected."
They went silent for a minute while the river below flowed along at almost four knots between the great levees that shielded the land from flood. Small farms with cows grazing in pastures and orange groves spread across the narrow strips of Solid ground bordering the levees, before slining away into marshland. They flew over Port Sulphur, with its great piers entrenched along the west bank. Small mountains of yellow sulphur rose fifty feet over the flat, poisoned ground.
The next half-hour produced the first of three false alarms. A few miles below Port Sulphur they spotted an abandoned cannery with two barges tied up beside it. Griffin radioed his team of agents, who were chasing the helicopter from the road on the west bank. A quick search proved the building to be empty, and the barges contained only bilge water and silt.
They continued south, flying over the vast marshes and meandering bayous toward the gulf, spotting several grazing deer, a number of alligators sunning themselves in the mud and a small herd of goats that looked up at their passing with indifferent curiosity.
A huge freighter churned upriver, thrusting its blunt bow against the current. The flag of registry on its stern flapped red with a gold star and hammer and sickle.
"Russian," Pitt observed.
"The Soviets own a fair percentage of the five thousand ships that steam into New Orleans every year," said Griffin.
"Want to see what's on that barge?" Hogan asked, pointing.
"There, tied up behind that dredge on the east bank."
Griffin nodded. "We'll check this one out ourselves."
Hogan nodded her blond mane. "I'll set you down on the levee."
She expertly dropped the tires of the helicopter onto the crushed shell road that ran along the top of the levee. Three minutes later Griffin ran across a creaking ramp to the barge. Another three minutes and he was back strapping himself in his seat.
"No luck?" asked Pitt.
"A bummer. The old tub is half filled with oil. Must be used as a refilling station for the dredge."
Pitt looked at his watch, Two-thirty. Time was sifting away. A few more hours and Moran would be sworn in as President. He said, "Let's keep the show moving."
"Ah hear y'all ta
lkin'," Hogan said as she brought the craft up and over the river in one quick bank that had Giordino feeling his stomach to see if it was still in place.
Eight more miles and they drew another blank after spying a barge moored suspiciously under a marine maintenance repair shed. A quick search by the ground team showed it was a derelict.
They pushed on past the fishing towns of Empire and Buras.
Then suddenly, after dipping around a bend, they saw a sight straight out of the golden years of the river, a spectacular and picturesque vision almost forgotten. Long white hull, wine beam, with a plume of steam drifting over her decks, a sidewheel pandle steamer sat with her flat nose nudged into the west embankment.
"Shades of Mark Twain," said Giordino.
"She's a beauty," Pitt said as he admired the gingerbread carviiigs on the many-storied superstructure.
"The Stonewall Jackson," Griffin explained. "She's been an attraction on the river for seventy years."
The steamer's landing stages were lowered on the bank in front of an old brick fortress constructed in the shape of a pentagon. A sea of parked cars and a crowd of people wandered the parade ground and brick ramparts. In the center of a nearby field a cloud of blue smoke billowed above two opposing lines of men who seemingly stood shooting at each other.
"What's the celebration?" asked Giordino.
"A War Between the States re-enactment," Hogan replied.
"Run that by me again."
"A staging of a historic battle," Pitt explained. "As a hobby, men form brigades and regiments based on actual fighting units from the Civil War. They dress in authentic woven uniforms and shoot blanks out of exact-replica or original guns. I witnessed a re-enactment at Gettysburg, They're quite spectacular, almost like the real thing."
"Too bad we can't stop and watch the action," Griffin said.
"Plaquemines Parish is a storehouse of history," said Hogan.
